Chapter 10

THE GREAT BEAR-HUNT

The hair-raising story that the young squirrel-hunter told, created quite an excitement among villagers near by, but on second consideration the older and wiser heads were inclined to discredit it. The imaginative Nimrod had probably seen a black stump or dark moss-covered rock, which, in the excitement of the moment, he did not stop to investigate. He had fired upon the instant and then fled without taking further inventory of the place. It was doubtless one of those hallucinations that are so common in the woods. Bears had not been plentiful in the region for several years, so at first the story was discredited.

About a week later Grandpa Hezekiah Butterfield, one of the old men of the village, went about a mile into the country to a farmhouse to take supper with an old crony and to talk over old times.

As is usual when two grandpas get to talking over old times, Grandpa Butterfield stayed much later than he intended, starting for home at about eight o'clock. But when he went, he felt well repaid for his visit, because he had completely out-talked his companion and moreover was carrying back a present of five pounds of honey, which, as the old man had a sweet tooth, the only tooth he had, was most acceptable.

Just after leaving the farmhouse, the way led through a deep woods which overhung the road, making it quite dark in places.

It happened that on this same evening Black Bruin went forth on one of his nightly prowls.

It was a moonlight night and the wood-mice were out in force, scampering about and squeaking, having the finest kind of a play. In the course of his stalking this small game, Black Bruin came to within a few rods of the road. He was sniffing about an old log which smelled strongly of mice when a fresh puff of the wind brought him a strong man-scent.

At this dread odor the hair rose upon his neck and fear told him to slip quietly away in the opposite direction from which the scent came.

He was about to obey this instinct when the wind again freshened and a new odor filled his nostrils. It was not as strong as the man-scent and it did not fill him with fear, but with delight. It made his mouth drip saliva and filled him with an insatiate craving for something, he could not remember just what.

Then the old sweet smell, that was to him what whisky is to the drunkard, brought back a familiar picture. It was of a farmhouse with barns and many out-buildings. There were hens, ducks and turkeys in the yard and back of the house was a row of beehives that always emitted this ravishing odor.

It was honey, and at the realization Black Bruin could almost hear the low droning of the hive, or the angry zip, zip of the bees about his ears as he robbed them.

Again the night-wind brought the man-scent and the smell of honey. The former filled him with fear and the latter with delight. Again and again he tested the wind, weighing the two odors, and at last the honey conquered.

The man might fill him with thorns and prickers from his thunder and lightning stick, but he must have some of that honey.

Grandpa Butterfield was walking leisurely along humming a psalm tune, as was his wont when well pleased with the world, when he thought he heard something behind him in the road.

He stopped and listened, but all was still. Only the usual night-sounds came to his ears. But when he moved on, he felt sure that the footsteps again followed.

At last he reached a point where the moonlight fell across the road. He now felt quite sure that something was coming after him but what, he could not imagine. Feeling curious, and a bit uneasy, for the road was a lonely one, he turned and looked behind and there, in the full moonlight, not forty feet away, he beheld a huge black bear following surely in his footsteps.

There was no deceiving his eye. He had seen too many bears in days gone by.

Grandpa Butterfield quickened his walk to a trot, which in a dozen steps he increased to as lively a run as a man of seventy years could muster.

Black Bruin, feeling, now that the man was running, he was afraid of him, and seeing his precious honey rapidly moving away down the road, went in hot pursuit.

By the time the old man had covered a hundred feet, his breath came in quick asthmatic gasps. Craning his stiff neck to see if he had distanced his pursuer, he saw to his horror that the bear was not twenty feet behind him. Terror now lent wings to his rheumatic old legs, and he sprinted another hundred feet in much quicker time than he had the first.

But Black Bruin now felt sure that the honey was his. The man creature was clearly afraid of him, so he too increased his pace.

Poor Grandpa Butterfield could almost feel the bear's hot breath upon his back as he ran. Ten seconds more, he told himself, and he would be in the clutches of this brute. His obituary and the account of his tragic death would surely be in the county paper next week.

Suddenly his half-paralyzed brain was electrified by a thought. It was the honey that the bear was after, and not him. Who ever heard of a bear wanting to eat an old dried-up man, who was as tough as leather?

Without a second's delay he pitched the honey into the road behind him, and continued his frantic flight.

A few rods farther on, feeling that he was no longer pursued, he glanced back just long enough to see the bear tearing the paper from the package and licking out the honey.

That evening at the country grocery the bear-story of the squirrel-hunter was amply corroborated by Grandpa Butterfield, who was so winded and spent with running that he could barely gasp out his disconnected account of the chase through the woods.

The next morning, with Grandpa Butterfield as a guide, several men went over the ground, where there was plenty of evidence to substantiate the old man's story. The empty honey-frames were there, and the bear-tracks told as plainly as words that a bear, of unusual size, had given the old man the run of his life through the woods.

Grandpa Butterfield was the hero of the village, both for that day and several following, and the long-talked-of bear-hunt was at once organized.

There was but one rifle in the village, and that was a 38-55 Winchester, the property of the young hunter from the city, who had filled Black Bruin's coat with squirrel-shot. So old rusty shotguns were got out and cleaned up in readiness for the fray. Some of them had not seen service recently, with the exception of once or twice a year, when they were used to scare off the crows or to frighten a woodchuck which was making too free with the beans.

Boys hunted up old rusty bullet-moulds and ran bullets, and the shotguns were loaded with slugs and buckshot.

Those who were not fortunate enough even to possess a disreputable old gun, armed themselves with pitchforks, so that altogether it was a motley armed party that started out one early October morning to annihilate Black Bruin.

The dogs comprising the pack were half-breed hounds and beagles, with two or three pure-blood foxhounds.

By rare good fortune a farmer, coming into town early, had seen the bear crossing the road ahead of his team, so that the dogs could be shown the trail at once.

But when the hunters pointed out the hand-shaped track in the road and said "seek," the hair rose upon the dogs' backs and they stuck their tails between their legs and interpreted "seek," as meaning that they were to seek their own homes by the shortest path. This new rank animal scent had no attraction for them. They had not lost any bear. In other words, they would not follow.

Here was a difficulty that the hunters had not foreseen, and for a time it looked as though the hunt was doomed to end then and there.

Finally some one in the party said, "We ought to have taken along Ben Holcome's Growler. Growler ain't afraid of the devil himself."

Growler was a mongrel, half-hound and half-bulldog. He had not nose enough to follow alone, but as had been said, he wasn't afraid of anything. So as there was nothing else to do, a boy was sent cross-lots after Growler, while the hunters waited impatiently.

Growler and the boy at last put in an appearance, and the mongrel was shown the bear-track in the road.

Growler's hair likewise rose up on his neck, but his lips also parted in a snarl and he started off on the fresh track, uttering excited yelps. Growler thought he scented a good fight ahead, and he would rather chew on a good adversary any day than upon a piece of beefsteak.

Seeing what was expected of them, and made courageous by Growler's example, the pack followed at full cry, and the great bear-hunt was on in earnest.

Black Bruin heard them almost at the outset, where he was digging roots in the deep woods, and for some reason the sounds annoyed him. He knew they were made by dogs, for he had often heard the old hound Hecla at the farmhouse running rabbits in the near-by swamp.

But here, there were half-a-dozen hounds instead of one, and their baying was fairly clamorous.

Finally, the pack entered the woods not forty rods away, and Black Bruin began to get uneasy. At last it dawned upon him, as the pack drew still nearer and nearer, that; they were upon his track. This thought filled him with both fear and rage. What did these curs want of him? Had he not killed a dog that was worrying him, while with Pedro, with a single blow?

So he crouched in a thicket and waited expectantly. He had not long to wait, for in fifteen seconds the pack came up. When they discovered the bear so near at hand, however, and saw what menacing game they had been running, the hounds all slunk back to a safe distance, and sat on their tails. But not so Growler.

Here was the scrap of his life with an animal three times as large as the big Newfoundland, whom he was in the habit of worrying. So he rushed into the thicket and sprang at Black Bruin's throat.

But quick as he was, he was not as quick as his adversary, who ripped open the side of his head with a lucky blow, and stretched him gasping upon the ground. Black Bruin then reached down and biting the kicking dog through the neck, finished his troubles in short order.

Growler uttered one agonized cry, and stretched out dead. This was enough for the rest of the pack, all of whom stuck their tails between their legs and ran for their respective masters.

Hearing the cries of men near at hand, Black Bruin slunk out of the thicket and off into the deep woods, but not soon enough to escape a fusillade of buckshot which whizzed about him as he ran, a few of them biting deep into his flesh.

But he was soon lost to sight, and as the pack would not follow, now that Growler was no more, the hunt was finally abandoned for that day.

The next day a bulldog and a bull terrier were procured to take the place of Growler, and the hunt was resumed. But being made wary by this experience, Black Bruin "laid low" and they could not start him.

Each morning for three days they scoured the country, beating the woods and loosing the hounds at all points where the bear had been recently seen, but without success.

The fourth morning a farmer came to town in great haste. The bear had killed a calf the night before and he had discovered the partly eaten carcass buried in the woods near by. Here was the bait that would lure the thief into their hands.

So hunters and hounds went at once to the carcass, where a rather fresh trail was found. Half an hour's pursuit again routed out the bear. Once he took to the open, and the young hunter from the city with the Winchester sent a bullet through his paw, laming him considerably. This would never do, so he doubled back to the woods.

He did not fear this yelping, baying pack as he did the men that were also following him. He now knew that the thunder and lightning that they carried could bite and sting as nothing else could.

For half an hour Black Bruin ran hither and thither, doubling in and out. Finally he remembered his tree-climbing habit and in an evil moment clambered up a tall spruce. In five minutes' time after he scratched up the tree, men and dogs had surrounded his foolish refuge, and his fate seemed sealed.

The last of the party to arrive was the young man with the Winchester, for whom all had been waiting. One shot from him would end the hunt.

They discovered Black Bruin about thirty feet from the ground in a thick whorl of limbs.

The young rifleman was much excited. This would be his first bear. His name would be in the local paper, and he would have a great story to tell when he got back to the city.

Experience would have taught him to draw his bead finer than he did, and also to have lowered his rear sight, which was set for two hundred yards; but taking careless aim, and thinking he could not miss at such short range, he pressed the trigger.

There was a sharp crack from the rifle, and the bullet ploughed a deep wound in Black Bruin's scalp, but glanced from his thick skull and went singing through the tree-tops.

The blow of the bullet upon the skull dazed the bear for a moment, and he loosed his hold and came tumbling down through the interlaced limbs.

But the hard bump that he got at the foot of the tree, brought him to his senses with a jerk. Right among the yelping, snarling pack he had fallen, and in sheer desperation he struck out right and left.

Two of the hounds went yelping to the rear. Then an excited boy leveled a double-barreled shotgun at the bear and discharged both barrels.

At the same instant the best hound in the pack jumped into range and rolled over kicking upon the ground. He had received the full charge.

Half-blinded and dazed by the blow upon his head, and made frantic by the yelping of the pack, the shouts of the men and the roar of their thunder, Black Bruin put all his remaining strength into flight.

Not knowing or seeing which way he went, he fled straight toward the hunter with the Winchester with mouth wide open.

Horrified at the sight, which the hunter interpreted as a desperate charge upon the part of the bear, the city Nimrod delivered one wild shot and then fled for his life, as he thought.

This stampeded the entire hunt, and the terrified men fled as fast as their legs could carry them until they left the spot far behind.

It was a question whether the frantic beast tried harder to get away from the hunters, or they from him.

In the village grocery the stories that were told that night made the small boy's hair stand up with fright and his blood run cold with fear.

As for Black Bruin, with his wounded paw upon which he limped painfully, and with his bleeding scalp, he concluded that the part of the country in which he had made his home for several months, was no place for him, so before another sunrise he put many miles between himself and the scene of his narrow escape from the hunters.

Nor did this one night's journey calm his fear. Night after night he fled, always going in the same direction, which, as he fled northward, carried him farther and farther into the wilderness.

At last in a wild country of rugged mountains and deep, thickly wooded valleys, where the habitat of man seemed far distant, he ceased his flight.

There in the wilderness, where lumbermen alone penetrated, Black Bruin denned up and slept away his fifth winter. His bed was made deep under the top of a fallen hemlock, where the snow drifted above him and covered him with soft white blankets. The only evidence that the outer world had that a bear was sleeping beneath was a small hole in the snow kept open by the warm breath of the sleeper.